Torkoal.

0:00What if I told you there's a Pokémon that waited 544 episodes for Ash to come home?!

0:04This is Torkoal, a tortoise that burns coal inside its shell.

0:08Its Pokédex says you can tell how it's feeling by the smoke pouring out of it.

0:12And Ash's Torkoal felt a lot.

0:16Whenever it got happy, it cried and blasted smoke out of its nose and its back, and that smoke turned everybody around it black.

0:20Even Brock pointed out how emotional it was, which was putting it nicely.

0:23Ash met it in a valley full of tough steel Pokémon.

0:27Torkoal had walked in there all by itself, looking for a fight with the biggest one, just to prove it was strong.

0:31With Ash calling the moves, it won.

0:35Then Ash asked if it wanted to come along.

0:39Torkoal answered by crying and tackling him to the ground.

0:43Later on, Ash headed off on his next adventure and left Torkoal at Professor Oak's lab.

0:47He called it back a couple of times for big battles.

0:51Then, after one last fight, it basically vanished from the show for 544 episodes.

0:55That's about twelve years.

0:59When Ash finally walked back into that lab, Torkoal was right there.

1:03It helped him train for the biggest tournament of his life.

1:07And when he won it and came home as the best trainer in the world, Torkoal was part of the welcome home.

1:10That was the last time it ever showed up on screen.

1:14If you know Torkoal, you know exactly what its face was doing.

1:18Maybe you've got somebody who cries every single time you come home, and you tease them for it.

1:22Maybe they've been waiting by the door the whole time you were gone.

1:26It sat off screen for about twelve years, and it was still there to welcome him home.